I went through all the fire of charges of stealing, and of every other crime in the whole calendar, twenty-five years ago—charges made, too, by people of vastly more influence than any of the women who are talking and writing today about you. I never made a public denial of one of them, through all the years of the bitterest kind of persecution, and believe I was greatly the gainer by working right on and ignoring them. It will be the mistake of your life if you go into print in your own defence. Your denial will reach a new set of people and start them to talking, while the ones who read the original charges will never see the refutation of them.

To one of the newly-enfranchised women of Utah:

The one word I should have to say to the women throughout your State would be, not so much to try to get women elected to the offices as to get the best persons, whether men or women. Naturally there will be a far less number of women than of men capable of holding office, from the very fact of their long disfranchisement. I do hope your women therefore will set a good example not only for Utah, but also for the States where they are not enfranchised; namely, that of proving it is not the spoils of office they are after. I think the women of Wyoming always have been wonderfully judicious in not being anxious to hold offices themselves, but mightily anxious as to what men hold them. It will be considered a strong objection to woman suffrage if the vast majority of your women should prove themselves mere partisans.

To a New York cousin: "Your little birthday present, the Book of Proverbs, came duly. Solomon's wise sayings, however, don't help me very much in my work of trying to persuade men to do justice to women. These men and their progenitors for generations back have read Solomon over and over again, and learned nothing therefrom of fair play for woman, and I fear generations to come will continue to read to as little purpose. At any rate, I propose to peg away in accordance with my own sense of wisdom rather than Solomon's. All those old fellows were very good for their time, but their wisdom needs to be newly interpreted in order to apply to people of today."

In answer to a letter from Illinois asking the secret of her success in life:

If I may be said to have made a success of my life, the one great element in it has been constancy of purpose—not allowing myself to be switched off the main road or tempted into bypaths of other movements. It always has been clear to me that woman suffrage is the one great principle underlying all reforms. With the ballot in her hand woman becomes a vital force—declaring her will for herself, instead of praying and beseeching men to declare it for her. It has been a long, hard fight, a dark, discouraging road, but all along the way here and there a little bright spot to cheer us on. And now we have four true republics, whose women are full-fledged citizens, and the prospects are hopeful for others soon to follow in the wake of those blessed four. One of the most cheering things in these days is the large number of young women who are entering the work, bringing to it a new, strong enthusiasm which will push on to victory. The women over all the country are waking up to the fact that truly to possess themselves, to have their opinions respected, they must have this right of suffrage.

A letter from the secretary of a national conference which was seeking to bring about a union of reformers, Prohibitionists, Free Silver advocates, etc., asked her assistance and called forth the following response:

It is all very well for you men, who have the power to make and unmake political parties, to form a third, fourth or fiftieth party, as the case may be; but as for myself and all who are of my class, disfranchised and helpless, we have nothing to do with any of them—old or new—except to ask each and all to put a woman suffrage plank in their platform and educate their members to place a ballot in the hands of women. I never have identified myself with any political party, but have stood outside of all, asking each to pledge itself to the enfranchisement of women. Whenever any one of them has asked me to speak in its meetings on the suffrage question, I have accepted the invitation, but I never have advocated the specific measures of any.

So, you see, I can be of no help to you, but I do know that no one of the reform political parties ever will amount to much standing alone, and that it would be a good thing for all of them to come together in one body. I might say, however, that least of all could I join yours, which makes "God the author of civil government." If such civil government as we have was made by God, what reason is there to expect any improvement in the future?

From a letter to Isabella Beecher Hooker:

Fortune indeed does not smile any too favorably upon us who feel so longingly the need to use money. I am crippled all the time and prevented from doing what I might by lack of funds. The old faith would say, I suppose, that whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth financially, but seems to me I could better do His work and my own for the regeneration of the world, if I had the money to do it with.... What a fuss the men are making nowadays over "good government"—the idiots! Can't they see it is impossible to improve things until they get a new and better balance of power that will outweigh the one which now pulls down the political scales and makes decency kick the beam every time? It does try my soul that we can not make them see they are simply trying to lift themselves by their bootstraps. Well, they are born of disfranchised mothers, a subject class, and one can not expect different results.

If I could spare the time and money I would love to accept your invitation to sit with you and your dear John in your summer retreat, and chat over the world of work for our good cause. Of the before and the after I know absolutely nothing, and have very little desire and less time to question or to study. I know this seems very material to you, and yet to me it is wholly spiritual, for it is giving time and study rather to making things better in the between, which is really all that we can influence; but perhaps when I can no longer enter into active, practical work, I may lapse into speculations.

To a debating society asking her opinion on the question of "educated and property suffrage:"

I always have taken the negative; that is, have believed in universal suffrage without either property or educational qualification. I hold that every citizen has a right to a voice in the government under which he lives. While an education is highly desirable, yet a man may be unable to read but may attend political meetings, talk with his neighbors and form intelligent opinions. He may be honest and beyond bribery, and a more desirable voter than many wily and unscrupulous men who have a graduate's diploma. It is, however, the duty of the State to educate its citizens; and the Australian ballot, which has been largely adopted, is in itself an educational qualification.

As to a property qualification: while in the majority of cases, perhaps, the possession of property is evidence of ability and thrift, there are many who do not own property and yet are possessed of good sense and are more capable of casting an honest and intelligent ballot than some of the wealthy men of the country; then, too, those who have least are the ones who suffer most from the legislation of the rich, and need the ballot for self-protection. I am decidedly opposed to a property qualification.

To one who was in deep grief she said in an affectionate letter: "Do assure me that you are beginning to think of your dear one as he was when well and moving about in his always helpful and cheering manner. To get far enough from the sickness, the suffering and the death of our friends, so as to be able to have only the thought of them in their full vigor of life, is the greatest joy which possibly can come to those who have lost their beloved."

While Miss Anthony was thus constantly giving out from the vast wealth of her heart and brain, she was receiving, also, from all parts of the country the strong and loving tributes of noble souls. A beautiful one which shines on the pages of 1896 was pronounced by the eloquent Dr. H. W. Thomas, of Chicago, in the course of a Sunday sermon entitled "Progressive Greatness," delivered to a large audience assembled in McVicker's Theater:

A Washington and a Lincoln have come in our great century, and between their birthdays was born a Susan B. Anthony, whose grand life has been given to a noble cause; once the target for the cruel and bitter shafts of ridicule; now deemed the noblest among women. The task of Washington and Lincoln could not be complete till the crown was placed on the brow of woman as well as man; and when the angels shall call Susan B. Anthony to the life immortal, her name, her memory on earth should and will take its place among the martyrs and saints of liberty, not for man alone, but for woman and child."

To watch the old year out and the New Year in, Miss Anthony went to Geneva, and here spent a few days very pleasantly with Elizabeth Smith Miller and her guest, Harriot Stanton Blatch. Among the New Year's remembrances were $50 from Mrs. Elda A. Orr, of Reno, Nev.; $150 from Mrs. Gross, of Chicago; and $300 from Mrs. Cornelia Collins Hussey, of Orange, N. J. The usual number of congratulatory letters were received from all classes of people, high and low, old and young, white and colored.

To show their wide range two or three may be given. From Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin, president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs: "I send to you on the New Year a fraternal greeting and my best wishes that this may prove for you and the interests you represent, a year of fulfillment. We are all serving the same cause and we are surely among the happy ones of earth that we are enabled to assist, by even a slight impetus, the 'power which makes for righteousness.' ... Therefore I send you today my heartfelt wishes for the continued success of your cause and the peace and prosperity of your life."

Her friend of fifty years, John W. Hutchinson, the last of that never-equalled family of singers, sent his New Year's greetings and added: "I bless you and your work. Wonderful possibilities will be the result of this great movement, which you have led, for equal rights and the franchise for women." The president of the National Council of Women, Mary Lowe Dickinson, an earnest, efficient worker for humanity, said in the course of a long letter dated January 9:

I pray that all strength and blessing of every kind may crown this coming year of your life; and O, how earnestly I hope that in it you may see the fruition of some of the work that you have been struggling with these many, many years. When I run over in my mind the present situation of the cause you represent—which seems to me more and more the one cause which must succeed if we are going to have genuine success anywhere else—I see what ground you have for encouragement and what a vast advance has been made; but I see, too, how slow it must seem to you, and how weary of waiting you must become. I know no courage like yours, and I do that courage full honor.

She had received a telegram of greeting from Frances E. Willard as soon as she arrived home from California, and January 5 accepted her urgent invitation for a little visit with her at the sanitarium of Dr. Cordelia Green, Castile; and while there addressed a parlor gathering of the patients. On January 15 she was guest of honor at a luncheon given by the Educational and Industrial Union of Rochester, at the Genesee clubhouse, to the State executive committee of the Federation of Clubs. Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Stetson spent a few days with her, and she arranged for her to hold Sunday evening services in the Unitarian church. On January 20 the two ladies, with Miss Mary, started for the twenty-ninth annual convention of the national association, which was to be held this year at Des Moines, Ia. The thermometer was 15 deg. below zero, the snow very deep, and Miss Anthony's friends saw her set forth on the journey to this cold western city with much anxiety. All their protests, however, were not sufficient to keep her at home; but she thought with much longing of the clean, beautiful streets of Washington, the mild climate, the Congressional committees, the crowds of visitors there from various parts of the country who always came to the convention, and she felt more strongly than ever that it was a serious mistake to take it away from the national capital.

She stopped at Chicago for a few days, and a characteristic little entry in her diary says: "I slept on a $6,000 bed last night; my! how much good suffrage work could have been done with that money." On the afternoon of January 23, Miss Anthony addressed a large meeting of the Woman's Club and in the course of her remarks paid a tribute to that organization, in which she said: "This is the banner club of the United States, not because it has such nice women for members, and not even because it is located in Chicago, but because it is a club which does a large amount of practical work."

Mrs. Foster Avery joined the party at Chicago and they reached Des Moines January 24, where they found the rest of the executive board, and all were entertained in the suburban mansion of James and Martha C. Callanan. The meetings were held in the Central Christian church, whose pastor, Rev. H. O. Breeden, extended a cordial greeting. Notwithstanding the extreme severity of the weather, 24 deg. below zero, the audience-room was crowded to its capacity at every public session, and overflow meetings were held. The convention was officially welcomed by Governor Francis M. Drake and Mayor John McVicar; Mrs. Adelaide Ballard, State president, made the opening address, and Mrs. Macomber spoke in behalf of the women's clubs of the city. State Senator Rowan was one of the speakers. Among the letters of greeting was one from Miss Kitty Reed, daughter of Speaker Thomas B. Reed. The memorial services showed that never in any previous year had so long a list of friends to the cause passed away as in 1896. There were thirty-seven names mentioned in the resolutions.[126]

In Miss Anthony's address she spoke of the great victories in 1896, as shown by the full enfranchisement of the women of Utah and Idaho. Mrs. M. C. Woods, from the latter State, presented an interesting account of the late campaign and an outline of their work for the future. Her mother, Emmeline B. Wells, made the report for Utah. Delegates were present from twenty States, and most of them were entertained in the hospitable homes of the city. A reception, attended by 500 guests, was tendered by Mr. and Mrs. Hubbell, at their elegant residence on Terrace Hill. An imaginative reporter on this occasion transformed Miss Anthony's historic garnet velvet gown, worn for the past fourteen years, into a "magnificent royal purple," and her one simple little pin into "handsome diamonds." A pleasant reception also was given by the Woman's Club in their commodious parlors. The daily newspapers contained excellent reports of the convention, but not one gave editorial endorsement of the cause it represented.

Those who believed in holding the alternate national conventions away from Washington were satisfied with the result; those who thought differently continued to hold the same opinion, and among the latter was Miss Anthony, who soon afterwards wrote to one of the business committee:

The conventions at Atlanta and Des Moines have but confirmed me in my judgment that our delegated body always should meet in Washington. For local propaganda both were undoubtedly good, but for effect in securing Congressional action, absolutely nil. I believe in resuming our old plan of holding at least two conventions every year, one for the election of officers and for its influence upon Congress in Washington every winter; the other in whatsoever State we have constitutional amendments pending, where we need to do our greatest amount of work in that direction. The best way for the national association to help create local sentiment is to build up and make a success of the different State annual meetings, and to have at least two of its ablest and most popular speakers attend as many of them as possible every year; and I think by this means we can do a great deal more to make the States feel that the national is mother to them, than by once in a lifetime holding a delegate convention within their borders. I am more and more convinced that some of the national officers must be present at every State annual meeting, and if well advertised there would be as many representatives of the local clubs present as go to our national convention.

On the way home from Des Moines Miss Anthony spent a few days at Indianapolis. The evening of February 3, Mrs. Sewall gave a reception in her honor, to which were invited the governor, members of the legislature, State officials and their wives, members of the Woman's Council and their husbands. At one end of the large drawing-room, on a slightly raised platform covered with rugs, sat Miss Anthony and Indiana's most revered woman, Zerelda G. Wallace, to whom Mrs. Sewall presented the guests. Later in the evening both of these ladies, from their "throne," as it was laughingly called, gave pleasant informal addresses, to which Senator Roots responded on behalf of the legislature. The next day Mrs. Wallace and Miss Anthony's old friend, Hon. George W. Julian, were entertained at luncheon and had a long afternoon chat. In the evening a reception was given for her by Mr. John C. and Mrs. Lillian Wright Dean at their pleasant home "The Pines."

The morning of February 5 Miss Anthony was invited to address a joint session of the Indiana legislature in the Assembly chamber. The judges of the supreme and appellate courts and most of the State officials were present, and all the visitors' seats on the floor and in the galleries were filled with Indianapolis ladies. Miss Anthony was introduced with words of praise by Representative Packard, and spoke for an hour, making her usual strong plea for a Sixteenth Amendment enfranchising women.

On February 6, at 9 A. M., in the midst of rain and sleet, she arrived in Rochester and, in less than an hour, reporters from every newspaper in the city were on hand for an interview. They had learned long since that they always were sure of a cordial reception at her cozy home, and that the returned traveller would not fail to tell them something which would make interesting reading. Miss Anthony was actuated by two motives in this: One was her desire to get as much suffrage news as possible into the papers, for no one could have a higher appreciation of the value of the press; the other was a strong sentiment of admiration and friendship for the faithful and industrious men and women who earn a living at newspaper work.

Sunday night, February 14, the birthday of Frederick Douglass was observed in the Plymouth Congregational Church. Miss Anthony presided over the large meeting and introduced the speakers.



There had been something in the air of Rochester for several weeks, something of a social nature in which most of the people in the city seemed interested, and it promised to culminate on the approaching 15th of February, when Miss Anthony should be eleven times seven years old. This famous birthday, which had been beautifully celebrated in New York, Washington and numbers of other cities and towns throughout the country, also had been often pleasantly observed in Rochester; but it was thought by many people here that it was time Miss Anthony's own city should hold a celebration which should eclipse all on record. The first intimation she had was the receipt of this invitation:

The woman's clubs of this city are planning to give a reception in your honor at Powers Hall on the evening of your seventy-seventh birthday, February 15, 1897. They have chosen this means of publicly expressing the great esteem in which they hold you, and the pride they feel in reckoning among their number a woman of national reputation. They trust that this date will be satisfactory, and this manner of showing their respect not distasteful to you. Very sincerely,

OLIVE DAVIS, Corresponding Secretary of the Committee on Arrangements.

The committee was composed of one member of each of the sixteen woman's clubs, and the admirable manner in which the affair was conducted certainly indicated that it was in the hands of representative women.[127] Most of the Rochester papers contained editorials of congratulation. Among others the Post-Express said of the celebration:

Its purpose is to indicate the esteem in which she is held by the people of the city of which she has, for many years, been a resident. It is not intended as a demonstration in behalf of the cause with which she has been especially identified. Its meaning is deeper and its scope is broader than this. It is the woman, rather than the advocate, who is to be honored....

Rochester is proud of Susan B. Anthony—proud that it can call her its citizen. It has come to appreciate her quality. It understands, not alone that she has stood in the front ranks of those who have done battle for the equality of woman with man at the ballot-box, but that she has also done much for the emancipation of woman from civil thralldom and social inferiority, and that in all good causes she has been distinguished—in philanthropies as in politics, in the reformation of moral abuses as in the righting of what seemed to her civic wrongs. As her work has proceeded, she has conquered prejudice and persuaded respect—respect for herself independent of and even superior to that for the causes in which she has enlisted. And so it occurs that the citizens of Rochester, without regard to the opinions they entertain upon woman suffrage and cognate movements, but wholly in admiration and affection for a noble woman, unite in the reception which awaits her, cordial and full of meaning. It will be a notable occasion, and one long to be remembered.

The daily papers gave long and elaborate reports of this great reception, headed, "Our beloved Susan; Two thousand hands grasped by the Grand Old Woman;" "Rochester Shows its Love for Her," etc., etc. A portion of the Herald account may be quoted as indicating the tone of all:

The reception accorded to Susan B. Anthony at Powers Hall by the woman's clubs of Rochester was one of the most brilliant events of the kind ever held in this city. All the prominent people of both sexes were there, and each vied with the others in doing honor to the woman whose splendid attributes of mind and heart have reflected so much credit on the city. But little preliminary work was needed, as it partook largely of the nature of a spontaneous tribute. Fully 2,000 people, representing the beauty, wealth and intelligence of the city, passed before this unostentatious, kindly woman during the evening and esteemed it an honor to press her hand.

The guests began to arrive at 8:30 o'clock and continued to come in a steady stream for two hours thereafter. Miss Anthony stood at the western end of the large room and around her were gathered the reception committee, composed of representatives from each of the woman's clubs in the city. The guests formed in line as they entered and each in succession took the hand of Miss Anthony. She greeted every one cordially and had a pleasant word for each. In one hand she held a beautiful bouquet of white and yellow roses sent by Miss Frances E. Willard.

There were more than Rochester's most distinguished citizens; hundreds of the poor and the humble, a number of colored people, men and women in all the walks of life, thronged the great hall surrounded with famous paintings and radiant with electric lights, flowers and beautiful costumes. They came to grasp the hand of one who had made no distinction of race or rank or belief in her fifty years' work of uplifting all humanity. If these had not been present, Miss Anthony would have felt that her own city had not offered its full tribute of recognition.

At the Anthony home the day was a happy one. Rev. Anna Shaw came to help celebrate. The house was filled with guests from out of town and many callers, and the bell was ringing all day for telegrams, letters and packages. There were potted plants and cut flowers, baskets of violets and hyacinths, and great bunches of roses and carnations. Letters and telegrams came from California and Massachusetts, and a number of States between. Clubs of many descriptions sent messages, and even Sunday-schools offered greetings. Mariana W. Chapman, president New York State Suffrage Association, expressed the congratulations of that body, and from all the National-American officers came words of appreciation. Among these were the following from the national organizer, Carrie Chapman Catt:

When a woman lives to be seventy-seven years old, having given a whole half-century and more to the cause of human liberty, her age becomes a crown of glory, before which every lover of progress bows in acknowledgment. Such a woman is she whom we know as "Saint Susan." Upon her birthday I have but one wish, and in this millions of grateful American women join with me; may she live in health and strength undiminished, until she witnesses the last woman in the United States blessed with all the political privileges of citizenship. If this wish might be fulfilled, I know it would bring the highest joy ever permitted a human being; therefore because I love her tenderly I make it, with gratitude for her years of service and with a reverence unspeakable for the woman whose courage, determination and adherence to principle made the service possible.

A few evenings later Miss Anthony attended a meeting held in Rochester by the Cuban League. As soon as she entered she was invited to a seat on the stage and then the audience insisted on a speech. Finally she came forward and said:

From the report of the first outrage in Cuba down to the present time, there has not been a moment but that its people have had my sympathy. Never since I began to know the meaning of the word "freedom" has anything taken a stronger hold on me than this struggle in Cuba. Even where all men are free, women are not, and I trust that when Cuban men achieve their independence and frame their constitution, they will not forget the women who have borne the struggle with them, as our Revolutionary fathers forgot the women who toiled by their side. The men of only four out of forty-five States of our republic have yet granted liberty to the women. I never can speak in a meeting like this without bearing testimony to the cowardice of the men of this nation in refusing to make the women free. I believe in liberty and equality for every human being under every flag, not for men alone but for women also.

The last of February a telegram announced the death of Maude, wife of Senator L. H. Humphrey, who but a few weeks before had visited the Anthony home, and stated that the husband desired Miss Anthony to speak at the funeral. She was a young and lovely wife and mother, treasurer of the State Federation of Clubs and an officer of the State and county suffrage associations. It was said that Miss Anthony spoke as one inspired of the woman in whose death everything good had lost a helpful hand, who had gone out of life with no fear for herself but only loving thoughtfulness for others. She told of her courage in following the truth wherever it might lead, of the freedom into which she had grown, and the beautiful faith and trust in which she had lived; she said that it was such who walked with God, and that her spiritual life could be comprehended only by those who lived on the same high plane. It was a deep regret to all who heard this exquisite eulogy that it was not preserved word for word.

Reference has been made in a preceding chapter to Miss Anthony's preparations for the writing of her biography, which were interrupted by the urgent call from California. All her letters from friends and many from strangers, for several years, had urged that it should not longer be deferred. But who should do it? That was the important question. There were a number of women who possessed the ability and the desire, but some were absorbed in family cares and others in breadwinning occupations; where was the one who could and would give a year or more of her life to this vast undertaking? The question was still unanswered when Miss Anthony laid everything else aside and plunged into the California campaign. Long before this had ended, she had exacted a promise from Mrs. Harper, who had charge of the State press during that long and trying period, to come to Rochester and write the biography. She herself agreed to remain at home till the work should be finished, and give every possible assistance from the storehouse of reminiscence and the wealth of material which had been so carefully garnered during all the years.

So the first of March, 1897, the work began. A little while before, Miss Anthony had written to a friend: "Some one soon will write the story of my life and will want everything she can get about me, but she will find there is precious little when she sits down to the task." What the biographer did find was two large rooms filled, from floor to ceiling, with material of a personal and historical nature. It seemed at first as if nothing less than a cyclopedia could contain what would have to be used. Ranged around the walls were trunks, boxes and bags of letters and other documents, dating back for a century and tied in bundles just as they had been put away from year to year. There were piles of legal papers, accounts, receipts and memoranda of every description, and the diaries and note-books of sixty years. The shelves were filled with congressional, convention and other reports; there were stacks of magazines and newspapers, large numbers of scrap-books and bushels of scraps waiting to be pasted. There was, in fact, everything of this nature which can be imagined, all carefully saved and put away, waiting for the leisure when they could be sorted and classified.

It was fortunate indeed that the two women, who went to work so cheerfully on that March morning, did not realize the task which was before them, or their courage might have wavered. With the assistance of their efficient secretary, Miss Genevieve Lel Hawley, the work went steadily on from daylight till dark for many days, until at length the sheep all were separated from the goats; the matter likely to be used placed in one room, and the remainder arranged conveniently for reference in the other. Every scrap of writing was pressed out and each year's quota not only placed in a separate box, but arranged according to months and days. The printed matter was carefully classified and the scrap-books all finished, a complete set of nearly fifty years.

Then commenced the far more difficult labor of culling the most important and interesting points from this great mass of material, and condensing them into such space as would permit the reading of the biography during at least an average lifetime. And thus was the task continued, day after day, and far into the night, for much more than a year. The snows of winter melted away; the bare branches of the tall chestnut trees which towered above the windows put forth their buds and burst into a wilderness of snowy blossoms; the birds built their nests among the green leaves, reared their young and flew away with them to warmer climes before the chill winds of approaching autumn; the luxuriant foliage faded and dropped to the earth; again the naked branches stretched out to a stormy sky, and the snow lay deep on the frozen ground; while the story followed the life and work of this great historic character through the slow unfolding out of the depths of the past; the development from the springtime of youth into the fruitful summer of maturity; the mellowing into the richness and beauty of autumn; the coming at last into the snowy spotlessness of serene and beautiful old age.

The attic workrooms were an ideal place for this long and exacting task, secluded from all interruption and dedicated so entirely to the work that not a book or paper ever was disturbed. A pretty description written by Mrs. Minette Cheshire Hair, of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle staff, and published in a number of papers, thus began:



Way up on the third floor of the cozy home at 17 Madison street, away from the dust and noise of the pavement, in a charming den admirably arranged for the purpose, two women have for months been busily engaged getting together material and putting it in shape for the publishers, which will give to the world a story—the story of a career as remarkable as any ever written. Pausing on the threshold, a description of the sanctum is not out of place, for the pleasant atmosphere and surroundings at once impress the visitor, so unconsciously have the occupants stamped it with their own strong individuality. It consists of two large and airy rooms which appear to be literally perched in the tree-tops, so close are the swaying branches, which seem to nod approval and encouragement to the two busy workers seated before a large bow window. Patches of the blue sky glimmer above and through them, and the scene without is restful and inspiring. Within is a large, low table where the writing is done, and an easy couch piled with pillows invites repose when the brain grows too weary.

The rooms are plain and ceiled above in natural wood, and on shelves arranged along the sides are boxes containing years of correspondence and documents, dating back to 1797—just one century. In the room beyond, three stenographers do their part of the work, and here also are large chests filled with the accumulations of years of public life. It would seem as if the task before these two dauntless women were almost endless, for every letter must be read and carefully noted, every newspaper clipping gleaned—and these alone would make volumes—old diaries perused, and the whole digested and woven into the fabric of facts which not only go to make the story of one woman, but the history of the great progressive movement of women during the past fifty years.

FOOTNOTES:

[126] Among them were Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sarah B. Cooper, Drs. Hiram Corson and Caroline B. Winslow, Judges E. G. Merrick and O. P. Stearns, Mary Grew, J. Elizabeth Jones, Hannah Tracy Cutler, Sarah Southwick.

[127] The idea of giving the reception originated among the members of the Wednesday Club, some of whom conceived the thought that it was time for the women of Rochester in some way to recognize Miss Anthony's ability, energy and labors in behalf of her sex.... Reformers, as a rule, are not popular in their day, and Miss Anthony ran the gauntlet of derision and abuse years ago, but today the magnificent services she has rendered for woman are everywhere recognized.

The plans have been perfected upon a very elaborate scale. The following are represented in the movement: the Wednesday Club, the Ethical Society, the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, the Wellesley Association, the Cornell Association, the Coterie, the Woman's Saturday Club, the Holyoke Association, the Jewish Council, the Sisterhood of Berith Kodesh, the Ignorance Club, the Tuesday Reading Club, the Livingston Park Seminary Alumnae, the Rochester Female Academy Alumnae, the Ladies' Travellers' Club, and Mrs. Hall's Art Class.

The reception is not to women only, but it is expected that a large number of men will be present. [Then follows a list of names of many of the prominent ladies of Rochester, who acted as a reception committee, and of equally well-known young men, who served as ushers.]—Democrat and Chronicle.



CHAPTER XLIX.

CHARACTERISTIC VIEWS ON MANY QUESTIONS.

1897.

Miss Anthony was strong in her determination to remain at home and devote herself to the biographical task, but found it almost an impossibility to resist the calls for her services which came from all directions. Occasionally she would slip out for a lecture, but long journeys and convention work for the most part were given up, and never during fifty years had she remained at home a fraction of the time that she spent here in 1897. Monday evening of each week was set apart to receive callers and the pleasant parlors often were crowded, many of the Rochester people declaring that this was their first chance of getting acquainted with their illustrious townswoman. There were two roles, however, which she never could fill with any pleasure to herself, that of the society or the literary woman. While no one loves her friends more faithfully or better enjoys receiving visits from them, she cares for social life, in general, only so far as it can advance her cause. Although letter-writing is a pleasure, she hates the use of the pen for so-called literary work. Standing on the platform, words and ideas rush upon her more rapidly than she can give them utterance, but with pen in hand the thoughts still come but refuse to be formulated.

In the chapters describing the preparation of the History of Woman Suffrage was set forth in detail her restiveness at such confinement. "I love to make history but hate to write it," was her oft-repeated assertion. The years had brought no change of feeling and her correspondence shows how she chafed under the search of old records, the reading of faded letters. Many times she wrote: "There is so much to be done, so much more money is needed and so many more women are wanted for the present work, that half the time I feel conscience-smitten to be dwelling among the scenes and people of the past. There are so very few of my early co-workers now on this side of the big river, that I am really living with the dead most of the time; but as there is no way out of this job except through it—through it I must go." In the journal she says: "O, how it tires me to think over and talk over those old days, not only of my own labors, but of the never-ceasing efforts to stir up others to work."

The 9th of March Miss Anthony lectured before the Men's Club of the Central Church at Auburn. On the 12th she spoke at a meeting addressed by Booker Washington in the interest of the Tuskeegee Colored Institute. The 24th she went to Albany with Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, Mrs. Catt, Elizabeth Burrill Curtis, daughter of George William Curtis, Mrs. Chapman, State president; and all addressed the senate judiciary committee in behalf of a woman suffrage amendment. Miss Anthony went to this hearing much against her will and, at its conclusion, declared she never again would stoop to plead her cause before one of these committees. She had made her appeals to their fathers and grandfathers, and she was tired of begging for her liberty from men not half her own age and with not a hundredth part of her knowledge of State and national affairs.

The seventieth birthday of the devoted sister Mary would occur on April 2, and Miss Anthony decided to have a home reception in her honor. When she broached the subject to a few intimate friends in the Unitarian church and the Political Equality Club, she found they already had such arrangements well under way and they insisted that she should leave the matter entirely in their hands. Anything which concerned the Anthony sisters interested Rochester, and the city papers contained extended notices. The Herald began a long interview as follows:

Seventy! It did not seem possible that the sprightly, energetic little woman who answered the reporter's ring could have reached the allotted threescore and ten. Old Father Time is certainly no more than a myth to Miss Mary Anthony. "Yes," said she, laughing, "I am about to make my debut. Just think of it, a real reception in my honor! By the time I'm eighty, my existence will probably have become one whirl of delicious excitement."

The reporter asked to see Miss Susan B. Anthony; five minutes would be sufficient; the matter was urgent and important.... Turning to her the reporter said: "The Herald would like you to give an account of your sister. You know she would never admit that she ever did anything worth mentioning, so it is from you that the true story must come."

She laughed as she took off her glasses, leaned back in her chair and asked, "Where shall I begin?"

"At the beginning, please."

"Well then, my sister was born in Battenville, the youngest of four daughters. One thing may surprise you. She, not I, is the suffrage pioneer in our family. She attended the first woman's rights convention, and when I came home from teaching school, I heard nothing but suffrage talk, and how lovely Lucretia Mott was, and how sweet Elizabeth Cady Stanton was. I didn't believe in it then, and made fun of it; but sister Mary was a firm advocate. My brother-in-law used to tell me that I could preach woman's rights, but it took Mary to practice them.

"For twenty-six consecutive years, from 1857 to 1883, she taught in our public schools. Many of the best citizens of Rochester once went to school to her; and it is perhaps her influence upon those minds and lives that my sister considers the most important part of her life-work. She has always been identified with the suffrage cause in this city and State, as I have with the national. For a number of years she was corresponding secretary of the State society, and for five years has been president of the city Political Equality Club.

"I can not tell you how she has helped and sustained me. She has kept a home where I might come to rest. From the very beginning, she has cheered and comforted me. She has looked after the great mass of details, my wardrobe, my business, etc., leaving me free. She is the unseen worker who ought to share equally in whatever of reward and praise I may have won."

The Democrat and Chronicle thus commenced a two-column account of the reception:

... The occasion was the seventieth anniversary of Miss Mary Anthony's birth and, in the afternoon and evening, crowds of her friends gathered to offer their congratulations and do homage to one who has done so much for the educational interests of the city and social and political equality for her sex. Miss Mary, to be sure, has not gained the national reputation which her famous sister enjoys, yet among the people of Rochester she is regarded as a sharer in the laurels won by Susan B. Whenever one is mentioned the personality of the other is immediately brought to mind.... It was with rare hospitality, interwoven with personal love and respect, that Dr. and Mrs. J. E. Sanford devoted their handsome home to the celebration of this birthday. Attired in black satin and duchesse lace, with a pretty bouquet of bride roses in her hand, Miss Mary presented a womanly and attractive appearance.

In the name of the club, Mrs. Sanford presented, with a felicitous little speech, a handsome, jetted broadcloth cape. She was followed by Mrs. Greenleaf, who tendered in affectionate words a purse containing $70, a golden tribute for each year from many friends.[128] John M. Thayer then made a witty and interesting address. He was followed by Rev. W. C. Gannett, who dwelt especially on the work done by Miss Mary in looking after the poor and needy for the past twenty years, not only as an officer of the city charitable association but in a private capacity, and closed by saying:

It takes two sorts of people to make a reform: One who become public speakers and bear the brunt of obloquy, and the other who in obscurity lend their assistance to the work. There are hundreds of this latter class that the world never hears about. It is the blessed silent side of life, and it seems to me that Mary is the very incarnation of the quiet majority of this great reform which is yet to celebrate its triumphs. In after years, when the story is written of this political equality movement, men will say that the battle was won by the two sisters, because there never could have been a Susan abroad if it had not been for a Mary at home.

If there ever was a time when Miss Anthony was speechless from supreme satisfaction it was on this occasion. All the honors ever bestowed upon herself had not afforded her the joy of this testimonial to her gentle, unassuming but strong and helpful sister, on whom she leaned far more than the world could ever know.



Miss Anthony assisted at the elegant golden wedding celebration of Mr. and Mrs. James Sargent, April 29; not one in the receiving line under seventy, and yet not one broken or enfeebled by age. The men erect and vigorous, the women beautifully dressed and full of animation, formed a striking illustration of the changed physical and social conditions of the last half-century.

Early in June Miss Anthony, Rev. Anna Shaw, Miss Emily Howland and Mrs. Harper went to Auburn to visit Eliza Wright Osborne, with whom Mrs. Stanton and her daughter, Mrs. Lawrence, were spending the summer. The days were delightfully passed, driving through the shaded streets of that "loveliest village of the plain" and walking about the spacious park and gardens surrounding the Osborne mansion; while in the evenings the party gathered in the large drawing-room and listened to chapters from the forthcoming biography, followed with delightful reminiscences by the two elder ladies and Mrs. Osborne, whose mother, Martha C. Wright, was one of their first and best-beloved friends and helpers. It was a rare and sacred occasion, and those who were present ever will cherish the memory of those two grand pioneers, sitting side by side—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony—the one just beyond, the other nearing the eightieth milestone of life, both having given to the world fifty years of unremitting service, and yet both as strong in mind, as keen in satire, as brimming with cheerfulness, as in those early days when they set about to revolutionize the prejudices and customs of the ages.[129]

The correspondence this year seemed heavier than ever before, letters pouring in from all parts of the United States and Europe. Even from far-off Moscow, in conservative Russia, came the cry of women for help. Pages written by the pen of another could not give so accurate an idea of Miss Anthony's opinions on various topics as single paragraphs culled from copies of her own letters, preserved, alas, only during the past few years since she has employed a stenographer. One scarcely knows which to select. To a newspaper inquiry she answered: "The 'greatest compliment' ever paid me was, that by my life-work I had helped to make the conditions of the world better for women." She wrote to an exasperated Ohio woman:

The plan you propose, of our getting all the members of suffrage clubs, and all individual women outside, in each State, to march to the polls every election day and attempt to deposit their ballots, sounds very well. But, my dear, it is impossible thus to persuade the women, after the Supreme Court of the United States has declared they have no right to vote under the National Constitution. Your suggestion means a revolution which women will not create against their own fathers, husbands, brothers and sons. A whole race of men under a foreign or tyrannical government, like the Cubans, may rise in rebellion, but for women thus to band themselves against the power enthroned in their own households is quite another matter. Hundreds have recommended your plan, so it is nothing new, but it is utterly impractical. There can be but one possible way for women to be freed from the degradation of disfranchisement, and that is through the slow processes of agitation and education, until the vast majority of women themselves desire freedom. So long as mothers teach their sons and daughters, by acquiescence at least, that present conditions need no improving, you can not expect men to change them. Therefore do not waste a single moment trying to devise any sort of insurrectionary movement on the part of the women.

In a letter to Mrs. Stanton she said:

Mrs. Besant lunched with us, and I heard her last evening for the second time. She is master of the English language, and whether or not one can believe she sees and hears from the world of the disembodied what she feels she does, one can not but realize that she is a great woman and has a wonderful theory of how human souls return to earth. But I tell her that it seems to me repellent that we have to come back here through Dame Nature's processes, after a period of such great freedom in the occult world, and again go through with teething, mumps, measles, and similar inflictions. The truth is, I can no more see through Theosophy than I can through Christian Science, Spiritualism, Calvinism or any other of the theories, so I shall have to go on knocking away to remove the obstructions in the road of us mortals while in these bodies and on this planet; and leave Madam Besant and you and all who have entered into the higher spheres, to revel in things unknown to me.... I will join you at Mrs. Miller's Saturday, and we'll chat over men, women and conditions—not theories, theosophies and theologies, they are all Greek to me.

There had been a question after the late election in Idaho whether the suffrage amendment required a majority of all the votes cast, or only a majority of those cast on the amendment. If the former, then it was defeated. The case was carried to the supreme court, which put the latter construction on the law. Miss Anthony wrote to the judges, Isaac N. Sullivan, Joseph W. Huston, Ralph P. Quarles, (John T. Morgan retired):

On behalf of the suffrage women of the United States, I thank you for the decision which you have rendered. I had studied over the clause a great deal and felt that if your judgments were biased by the precedents and prejudices which had controlled the decisions of the Supreme Courts of the United States, and of the different States, upon the extension of rights to women, you certainly would give the narrow interpretation. Instead of that, for the first time in the history of our judiciary, the broadest and most liberal interpretation possible has been given.

The Kentucky Daughters of the American Revolution, who were marking historic spots, she advised as follows:

I hope in your selections you will be exceedingly careful to distinguish those actions in which our Revolutionary mothers took part. Men have been faithful in noting every heroic act of their half of the race, and now it should be the duty, as well as the pleasure, of women to make for future generations a record of the heroic deeds of the other half. It is a splendid thing for your association to devote the Fourth of July to a commemoration of women. If I had the time, I too might be one of the "Daughters,"[130] for my Grandfather Read enlisted and fought on the heights of Quebec and at the battles of Bennington and Ticonderoga; but I have been, and must continue to be, so busy working to secure to the women of this day the paramount right for which the Revolutionary War was waged, that I can give neither time nor money to associations of women for any other purpose, however good it may be.

When the answer came that they were doing the very thing that she wished, she replied:

I am delighted; for however heroic our pioneer fathers may have been, our pioneer mothers, in the very nature of things, must have braved all the hardships of the men by their side with the added one of bearing and rearing children when deprived of even the vital necessities of maternity. Self-government is as necessary for the best development of women as of men. Sentiment never was and never can be a guarantee for justice, but with equal political power women will be able to secure justice for themselves. We have had chivalry and sentiment from the beginning of time, with some privileges granted as a favor. We now demand rights, guaranteed to us by codes and constitutions; and if their possession shall forfeit us gallantry, we will make the best of it. But I do not believe woman's utter dependence on man wins for her his respect; it may cause him to love and pet her as a child, but never to regard and treat her as a peer.

To Prof. C. Howard Young, of Hartford, Conn., for thirteen years an invalid and yet an ardent advocate of woman suffrage, she wrote: "I want you to feel that the dollar you have sent from year to year all this time for your membership in the national association has helped bring to us Idaho, for our organization committee's work in that State was a large factor in securing the victory. Every one who gives a dollar helps do the work where it is most needed to gain the practical result."

The following extracts are self-explanatory:

The vast majority of women easily can have their sympathies drawn upon to help personal and public charities, while very few are capable of seeing that the cause of nine-tenths of all the misfortunes which come to women, and to men also, lies in the subjection of woman, and therefore the important thing is to lay the axe at the root. Now, my dear, if you and all the women who are working for the different charities and reforms of your city, had the right to vote, how long do you suppose the brothels and gambling houses would be allowed to keep their doors open? Do you believe that if women could vote for every officer whose duty it is to enforce the laws, these dens would be licensed, or if not absolutely licensed, would be allowed to run year in and year out merely by the payment of fines from time to time? How long do you think our streets would be infested with men walking up and down seeking whom they might devour, and with women doing the same? While some of you must work, as you are doing, giving heart and soul to the mitigation of the horrors of our semi-barbaric conditions, I must strike at the cause which produces them.

To the women of Kansas:

I hope your State association won't do the foolish thing of wasting your time in asking the legislature to pass a law granting "presidential" suffrage to women. Our chances in your State have been postponed, if not absolutely killed, because of municipal suffrage, and now if you should induce your legislature to give "presidential" suffrage and the women should thwart the men's wishes in their votes for President, as they already have done with their limited franchise, you would be doomed never to get the right to vote for congressmen, governor and legislators. I wish women never would ask for any but full suffrage; and also that they would stop asking the legislatures to submit an amendment to the voters, until they have created public sentiment enough to get at least one of the leading parties to stand for it from year to year. We have been working at the top with the members of legislatures, delegates to conventions, etc., too long; it is now time to begin at the bottom with the voting precincts. Nothing short of this should be considered organization.

Miss Anthony received many poems every year from admiring friends of both sexes. This acknowledgment of one raises the suspicion that she was not so appreciative as she might have been: "I find in a very handsome lavender envelope a poem inscribed on lavender paper, addressed to Susan B. Anthony. Since I know nothing of the merits of poetry, I am not able to pass any opinion upon this, but I can see that 'reap' and 'deep,' 'prayers' and 'bears,' 'ark' and 'dark,' 'true' and 'grew' do rhyme, and so I suppose it is a splendid effort, but if you had written it in plain prose, I could have understood it a great deal better and read it a great deal more easily. Nevertheless, I am thankful to you for poetizing over me—although the fact is that I am the most prosaic, matter-of-fact creature that ever drew the breath of life."

A relative in California wrote that "God would punish the people in that State who worked against the woman suffrage amendment," and Miss Anthony replied:

It is hardly worth while for you or anybody to talk about "God's punishing people." If He does, He has been a long time about it in a good many cases and not succeeded in doing it very thoroughly. He certainly didn't punish the liquor dealers of San Francisco; instead of that, He let them rejoice over us women because of their power to cheat us out of right and justice. I think it is quite time, at least for anybody who has Anthony blood in her, to see that God allows the wheat and the tares to grow up together, and that the tares frequently get the start of the wheat and kill it out. The only difference between the wheat and human beings is that the latter have intellect and ought to combine and pull out the tares, root and branch. Instead of that, good men stay away from the ballot-box or else form third, fourth and forty-'leventh parties, thus leaving the liquor men and vicious elements, who always know enough to stand together, a balance of power on the side of the candidate or the party that will do most for their interests. If the good men were as bright as the bad men, they would pull together instead of separately.

To the Jewish Woman's Council: "From day to day I read the press reports of your meetings, and was pleased to see how successful they were; especially was I glad at the answer one of your women made to the criticism of your holding a meeting on Sunday. It is time to teach some of our Protestant women that it is just as worthy to do a good thing on Sunday as on Monday or any other day in the week, and no worse to do a bad one. They should learn also that they have no more right to ask you to hold their Sunday sacred than you have to demand that they shall observe your Jewish Sabbath."

Some California women wrote her that the politicians were advising them to ask for "educated and property suffrage," and she replied:

I should answer them that it is quite difficult enough for women to push their demand for enfranchisement on an equal basis with men. They all know there is not a man who has any political aspirations or a party which hopes for success, that would take a public stand in favor of such a measure as they wish us to adopt. I do not agree with them that we have too many voters now. Instead of that, I say we have just half enough, for a majority of the opinions of all the people combined is sure to be better than the opinions of any one class. They call it a "mistake" giving to poor and uneducated men the right to vote; whereas, the greatest wrongs in our government are perpetrated by rich men, the wire-pulling agents of the corporations and monopolies, in which the poor and the ignorant have no part.

No, they can not persuade me that it would be a right or even a politic thing to ask that only educated, tax-paying women be enfranchised. It would antagonize not only every man who had neither property nor education but also every one whose wife had neither, and all such would vote against the enfranchisement of the rich and educated women. You can not start a demand for any sort of restrictive qualification for women which will not lose more votes for the measure in one direction than it can possibly gain in another.

The habit of many women of continually intruding their religious beliefs into their public work was a great annoyance to Miss Anthony. To a prominent speaker on the Prohibition platform with whom she was well acquainted, she wrote: "It seems to me that by your using constantly the words 'God' and 'Jesus' as if they were material beings, when to you they are no longer such, you impress upon your audience, grounded as the vast majority yet are in the old beliefs, that you still hold to the idea of their personality. The world, especially women, love to cling to a personal, material help—God a strong man, Jesus a loving man." And then a little further on, referring to the common habit of regarding physical misfortunes as the punishment of God, she said: "God is not responsible for our human ills and we should not believe or disbelieve in Him on account of our aches and pains. It surely is not the good people who escape bodily ailments. Certain fixed laws govern all, and those who come nearest to obeying these laws will suffer least; but even then we must suffer for the failures of our ancestors."

One of the leading women in a State where a suffrage amendment was pending, wrote her that she felt sure the Lord would interpose in its behalf and she should try to influence the voters by prayer. In response Miss Anthony said:

I think you do not fully realize that the vast majority of the men whom you have to convert to suffrage, neither know nor care whether you and the rest of the women who want to vote, are especially inspired by God to make the demand. Those who are good Methodists like yourself ought to believe in suffrage already, and therefore your appeals are to be made to the men who are not Methodists, possibly not even Christians, and would be repelled by your presenting any of the religious motives which are so powerful with you and other church members. To prevail with the rank and file of voters, you must appeal to their sense of justice. I am glad to have you tell me personally about your communings with the Lord, but for you to give that talk of "miraculous intervention" to the common run of voters would be, as the Good Book says, "casting pearls before swine."

To a nephew, D. R. Anthony, Jr., and his bride on the day of their wedding, she telegraphed the beautiful words of Lucretia Mott: "May your independence be equal, your dependence mutual, your obligations reciprocal."

In the winter of 1897 a great cry was raised about what was called "yellow" journalism, the mischievous sensationalism of certain metropolitan newspapers. The matter was taken up by the W. C. T. U. and Miss Willard sent out an address to prominent women asking that they should protest against this journalism and also against such spectacles as the recent Corbett-Fitzsimmons prize fight. When it reached Miss Anthony she answered:

Your circular letter came duly, proposing that women should refuse to patronize the so-called "yellow" newspapers, and also protest against prize fighting. It seems to me that for the women of the country to come out now with their little piping voices, after all the great daily papers of the nation have written the strongest kind of editorials against both these evils, would be very like the caricatures of the old Conkling-Platt fight in the United States Senate—the tall Conkling dealing his blow, and the little Platt peeping, "Me, too."

Instead of going around echoing one or another class of men, it is time for women to put their heads together and demand to have their opinions counted the same as those of the men who make possible "yellow journalism" and prize fighting. They who wish may waste their time trying to make bricks without straw—to change the conditions of society without votes—I shall go on clamoring for the ballot and trying not to antagonize any man or set of men. Don't you see, if women ever get the right to vote it must be through the consent of not only the moral and decent men of the nation, but also through that of the other kind? Is it not perfectly idiotic for us to be telling the latter class that the first thing we shall do with our ballots will be to knock them out of the enjoyment of their pet pleasures and vices? If you still think it wise to keep on sticking pins into the men whom we are trying to persuade to give women equal power with themselves, you will have to go on doing it. I certainly will not be one of your helpers in that particular line of work.

In reading these and scores of similar expressions of wisdom and philosophy, one can but echo the words of Rev. Anna Shaw, who wrote to Miss Anthony: "Your letters sound like a trumpet blast. They read like St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans, so strong, so clear, so full of courage." Miss Anthony and Miss Willard always continued the best of friends, each great enough to respect the other's individuality. In reply to the above, Miss Willard wrote: "Dearest Susan, two women as settled in their opinions as you and I, show their highest wisdom when they mildly agree to differ and go on their way rejoicing, with mutual good word, good will, good heart. Ever yours with warm affection." A little later Miss Willard added to the official invitations to the World's and the National W. C. T. U. Conventions, her warm personal request for Miss Anthony's presence.

There was no end to the invitations which came by every mail: a banquet given by the New York Woman's Press Club; the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Woman's Club at Orange, N. J.; an anniversary breakfast of Sorosis, at the Waldorf; a reunion of the old Abolitionists in Boston; the Pilgrim Mothers' Dinner in the Astor Gallery; the dedication of the Mother Bickerdyke Hospital in Kansas; the opening reception of the Tennessee Centennial—the very answering of them consumed hours of precious time.[131] Neither was there any limit to the newspaper requests for opinions, such as, "Do you favor the use of birds for personal adornment? Why, or why not?" "Christ's message, 'Peace on earth, good will to men'—what has it done and what does it mean after nineteen centuries?" etc. She seldom attempted to answer such queries, but her comments while looking them over in her daily mail, if preserved by stenographer and historian, would make piquant reading.

An amusing letter turns up among the almost nine hundred received in 1897, in which a county official, not seventy-five miles from Rochester, asks these questions: "In how many cities have you spoken? How many lectures delivered? Have you ever spoken in Washington before Congress? Have you ever spoken in Albany before the legislature? How many people would you think you had addressed in your lifetime?" Miss Anthony responded: "It would be hard to find a city in the northern and western States in which I have not lectured, and I have spoken in many of the southern cities. I have been on the platform over forty-five years and it would be impossible to tell how many lectures I have delivered; they probably would average from seventy-five to one hundred every year. I have addressed the committees of every Congress since 1869, and our New York legislature scores of times."

As has been stated, she never replied to personal attacks, but during 1897 one so unjust and so bitter was made by a disgruntled woman of New York City in the St. Louis Republic, that she yielded to the importunity of friends and answered briefly:

I have been an officer in the National Suffrage Association since 1852, and its president since 1892. During that time I never have had one dollar of salary, nor have I ever received any money for my suffrage work from this association. I usually am paid for lectures by any society which sends for me to come to a special place. In all of the laborious State campaigns I have given my services without money and without price. The various bequests which have been left to me, to use at my discretion, all have been appropriated directly to the suffrage cause. Not one officer of the national association is or ever has been paid for her services, and most of them have contributed many years of hard work and a large amount of their own money.

By the middle of July the biography was so well advanced that the two workers felt entitled to a vacation during midsummer. The completed chapters were locked securely in the safety deposit vault and, with a fervent hope that the house would not catch fire and burn up the unwritten part of the book during their absence, they started, July 15, for a little tour, going first to the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Sargent on "Summerland," one of the loveliest of the Thousand Islands. Here Miss Anthony tried very hard for a whole week to do nothing. Even letter-writing was laid aside and she sat on the veranda and watched the great steamers and the pleasure boats go up and down the broad St. Lawrence; took long naps in the hammock swayed by the soft breezes; wandered through the picturesque ravine and along the water's edge; at evening watched the sun set in gorgeous splendor, leaving a trail of glory on the waters which slowly faded as the stars came out in the beauty of the night and were reflected in the still depths. Every day, with host and hostess and the other guests in the house, she boarded the little launch and sailed up the river, winding in and out among those wonderful islands with their diversity of hotels, clubhouses, elegant mansions and pretty cottages; but all surpassed by the adornments of nature, tall trees with luxuriant vines climbing to the very tops, and the great rocks of the ages, rent and cleft and covered with mosses and ferns.

It was a charming week but, although the stay might have been prolonged through the summer, Miss Anthony was far too busy a woman for much visiting, and on the 22d started for her old home at Adams, Mass., where a unique and long anticipated event took place, which will be described in the next chapter. A number of relatives, who had come from various parts of the country for this occasion, returned to Rochester with her. A little trip was made to Geneva to visit with Mrs. Stanton at Mrs. Miller's, and so the summer sped quickly and pleasantly away.

Miss Anthony attended the Ohio convention at Alliance, October 5, and was the guest of Mrs. Emma Cantine. While here, at the request of President Marsh, she addressed the students of Mount Union College on "The Progress of Women during my Lifetime." She had said again and again that she would not leave her work and go to this convention, but when at last a telegram was received, "For heaven's sake come; all depends on you"—she put on her bonnet and went, just as she had done a hundred times before.

She spoke, October 20, at the celebration of the hundredth birthday of Rev. Samuel J. May, in the beautiful church erected to his memory in Syracuse. She had known Mr. May intimately from 1850 to the time of his death, and those who have read the first chapters of this book and seen what he was to her in those early days of abolitionism and woman's rights when the enemies far outnumbered the friends, can imagine how eloquently she voiced the love and gratitude in her heart.

The next evening Miss Anthony left Rochester for ten days at Nashville, Tenn. The Woman's Board had invited a number of national organizations to hold conventions during the Exposition, and the last week was set apart for the Woman's Council. This was not a suffrage meeting; it was simply a national council where each one of the speakers asked for the suffrage to enable her association to do its work. Headquarters were at the Maxwell House, and the officers and many other notable women came from various parts of the country for the week. The public sessions were held in the Woman's Building, which was crowded to its capacity. Although suffrage was a comparatively new subject in this city, the announcement of Miss Anthony's address filled the assembly-room and she was received with enthusiasm.

They met with a hearty greeting from the people of Nashville. Among the elegant receptions given in their honor was one by Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Berry at Vauxhall Place. The president of the Exposition, Mr. John W. Thomas, and his wife gave a handsome entertainment, of which the American's account said: "By the hostess stood her honored guest, Miss Susan B. Anthony, in simple attire. Warm was the reception accorded this gray-haired woman, and her grand face impressed all with the noble part she had played in this century." At the close of the council the visitors, as the guests of the lady directors, were driven in tally-ho and carriages to the beautiful country-seat of the president of the board, Mrs. Van Leer Kirkman, where they were royally received.

Miss Anthony spoke also before the Liberal Congress of Religions in session at this time, and was introduced by the president, Dr. Thomas, as "one who had stood for the cause of liberty when it cost something to stand, and had borne the storm of calumny and abuse for fifty years." While she was in Nashville President Erastus M. Cravath, of Fiske University, called with his carriage and took her to that institution, where she addressed the faculty and 600 students, speaking, by request, on "The Early Days of Abolitionism."

After a day or two at home Miss Anthony attended the New York Suffrage Convention at Geneva, November 3. Here she made a speech criticising the women of New York City for having gone so actively into partisan politics during the recent campaign, although none of the parties advocated giving them the right of suffrage, and pointed out the absurdity of hoping for "good government" from any party until it was reinforced by the votes of women. The speech created something of a sensation, and when she reached home a reporter was waiting for her, to whom she gave an interview which intensified the original excitement. Not only did she review the political situation in New York, but she declared also that no movement could succeed unless it were managed by a so-called "ring." Leaders must be surrounded by those who are in sympathy with their ideas and willing to carry out their methods, or nothing can be accomplished. In commenting, the paper quoted the remark so often made, "When Susan B. Anthony was born a woman, an adroit statesman was lost to the world."

On November 11 Miss Anthony started on a great swing of western conventions, or conferences, stopping on her way to the railroad station to attend the golden wedding reception of her friends of nearly fifty years, Dr. and Mrs. Edward M. Moore. These conferences—Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, Miss Shaw, speakers—were for the purpose of arousing interest and raising money for the suffrage celebration to be held in Washington in the winter of 1898. They began at Minneapolis and continued for two days each in Madison, Chicago, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Toledo. At the first city Miss Anthony addressed the students of the State University, introduced by President Cyrus Northrop. A reception was given in the public library building by the local Woman's Council.

At each of the cities visited the ladies were entertained by prominent residents, the audiences were large and appreciative, and the newspapers contained long and favorable reports. There was not a discord in the chorus of pleasant welcome; not a disrespectful word of either the speakers or the cause they advocated. The question was treated with the same consideration and dignity as others before the public for discussion, and it required no more courage to present it than to talk of any other reform of the day.

If one desire an illustration of the progress made by women during half a century, let him turn to the early chapters of this book and read the story of those first meetings where Miss Anthony, rising timidly in her seat and asking to make a remark, was literally howled down because no woman was allowed to speak in public; and then let him read these closing chapters of her ovations extending from ocean to ocean. From a canvass of New York State in a sleigh, speaking to little handfuls of people in country schoolhouses, ridiculed by the newspapers and outlawed by society—to an endless series of conventions and congresses in all the great cities of the country, with no hall large enough to hold the audiences and with almost the unanimous approval of press and people! Only a short period of less than fifty years, scarcely a second in the eons of history, and yet in that brief time a revolution in public sentiment, an overturning of the customs and prejudices of the ages, the release of womanhood from unknown centuries of bondage!

FOOTNOTES:

[128] Among other birthday remembrances were a diamond pin from Miss Shaw, Mrs. Avery, Mrs. Louise Mosher James and Lucy E. Anthony; $50 from Mrs. Gross; many smaller gifts and quantities of flowers.

[129] During this month a fine medallion of Miss Anthony was made for the Political Equality Club of Rochester and put on sale to obtain money for the suffrage fund. Some time before, a handsome souvenir spoon was designed by Mrs. Millie Burtis Logan, of Rochester.

[130] Later Miss Anthony was made honorary member of Irondequoit Chapter, D. A. R. (Rochester).

[131] Miss Anthony was this year made honorary member of the Cuban League, the Rochester Historical Society, the Ladies of the Maccabees, and various other organizations.



CHAPTER L.

HOME LIFE—THE REUNION—THE WOMAN.

1897.

The unsurpassed powers of endurance, which have enabled Miss Anthony to work without ceasing for more than sixty years, are due to her perfect physical condition. She comes of a long-lived race, in which centenarians have been not unusual. Her paternal grandfather lived past the age of ninety-seven, able to oversee his farm to the very last; the grandmother lived beyond sixty-seven; both the maternal grandparents died in their eighty-fourth year; her father at sixty-nine, and her mother at eighty-six. She never has abused her inheritance of a fine, strong constitution. Travelling so much of the time, she has not been able to observe regular hours and, being usually entertained in private families, has not had a choice of food, but nevertheless, as far as possible, she has observed the laws of health which she made for herself in youth.

She never fails to take each morning, regardless of the weather, a cold sponge bath from head to foot, followed by a brisk rubbing, which puts the skin in excellent condition. She has a good appetite, drinks tea and coffee moderately and eats always the simplest food, cereals, bread and butter, vegetables, eggs, milk, a little meat once a day, plenty of fruit at every meal, whatever is in season, and never can be tempted by rich salads, desserts or fancy dishes. Whenever it is possible she rests a short time after each meal, and lies down for an hour during the afternoon, even if she can not sleep; retires at nine or ten and rises at six or seven. She travels by night, when convenient, as she thus can avoid much of the fatigue of the journey. When travelling in the daytime she reads very little, never writes or dictates letters on the train, as many busy people do, but makes herself comfortable and dozes and rests.

An invariable rule, with which nothing is allowed to interfere, is plenty of fresh air and exercise, and she regards these as the mainspring of her long years of health and activity. If she has been on the cars all day, she walks from the station to her stopping-place. After a speech, she walks home. When in Rochester she often writes until nearly 10 o'clock at night, then puts on a long cloak, ties a scarf over her head, goes out to the mail box, and walks eight or ten blocks, returning in a warm glow; gives herself a thorough rubbing, and is ready for a night's rest in a room where the window is open at all seasons. The policemen are accustomed to the late pedestrian and often speak a word of greeting as she passes. It is not an unusual thing for her to take up a broom, when it has been snowing all the evening, and sweep the walks around and in front of the house, just before going to bed. While not an adherent of any special "sciences" or "cures," she believes thoroughly in not dwelling upon either mental or bodily ills; giving disagreeable things and people only such attention as is absolutely necessary, and then putting them out of mind; observing the laws of hygiene with regard to the body and then banishing it also from the thoughts. Over and above all else is she an advocate of work, employment for mind and body, as a means of salvation.

In dress Miss Anthony is extremely particular. She considers it poor economy to wear cheap material, always buys the best fabrics, linings and trimmings, and employs a competent dressmaker. She has one gown a year and often this is a present from some loving friend. While she wears only black silk or satin in public, she loves color and her house dress is usually maroon or soft cardinal. Her laces and few pieces of jewelry are gifts from women. The slender little ring, worn on the "wedding finger," was placed there thirty years ago by her devoted friend, Dr. Clemence Lozier. She never in a lifetime has changed the style of wearing her hair, once dark brown, glossy and abundant, now thin and fine and shining like spun silver, which is always evenly parted, combed over the ears and coiled low at the back, thus showing the fine contour of her head. In all the details of the toilet she is most fastidious, and a rent, a missing button or a frayed edge is considered almost an unpardonable sin.

Miss Anthony attends Unitarian church but retains her membership in the Society of Quakers. On the rare occasions when she needs a physician, she consults some woman of the homeopathic school, but she is opposed to much medicine, believing that proper diet and exercise are the best cure for most maladies. Although pleased always to welcome callers, she makes few visits, except to the faithful friends of olden times whose names so often have been mentioned in these pages. She finds the days all too short and too few for the great work whose demands increase with every year. While Miss Anthony feels an abiding interest in household affairs, the details and management necessarily devolve upon her sister Mary, who also looks carefully after the finances, to see that the modest income is not all appropriated to the cause of woman suffrage. In matters of a material nature she is the needed complement to the life of her gifted sister. On all vital questions, suffrage, religion, the various reforms, the two are in perfect accord and, as they sit together in the quiet home for the usual twilight chat before the lamps are lighted, there is none of that dwelling in the past, to which old people are so prone, but all is of the present, the live topics of the day, and the plans and hopes which they share alike.

The Anthony home in Rochester stands in Madison street, one of the nicely paved, well-shaded avenues in the western part of that beautiful city. It is a plain, substantial two-and-a-half story brick house of thirteen rooms, with modern conveniences, and belongs to Miss Mary. It is furnished with Quakerlike simplicity but with everything necessary to make life comfortable. In the front parlor are piano, easy chairs and many pictures and pieces of bric-a-brac, given by friends. Over the mantel hangs a fine, large painting of the Yosemite, presented to Miss Anthony in 1896 by William Keith, the noted artist of California. Beneath it stand three fine photographs, Mary Wollstonecraft, Lucretia Mott and Frederick Douglass. Between the windows is the very mahogany table upon which were written the call and resolutions for the first woman's rights convention ever held—the gift of Mrs. Stanton. In the back parlor the most conspicuous object is the library table strewn with the papers and magazines which come by every mail. This is surrounded with arm-chairs, tempting one to pause awhile and enjoy this luxury of literature. On one side are the bookcases, and on the walls large engravings of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and a handsome copy of Murillo's Madonna, while in one corner stands the mother's spinning-wheel. Opening out of this room is Miss Mary's study, the big desk filled with work pertaining to the Political Equality Club of 200 members, whose efficient president she has been for a number of years; and here she spends several hours every day looking after her own work and relieving her sister of a part of hers. There is a sewing-machine here also, and a big, old-fashioned haircloth sofa, suggesting a nap and a dream of bygone days.

In the dining-room is a handsomely carved mahogany sideboard, a family heirloom, containing china and silver which belonged to mother and grandmother, and here hang very old steel engravings of Washington and Lincoln. The large, light kitchen, with its hard coal range, is a favorite apartment, and Miss Anthony especially enjoys sitting there in a low rocking-chair while she reads the morning paper. The front room upstairs, with little dressing-room attached, is the guest chamber. It contains a great chest of drawers, a dressing-table and mirror which were part of the mother's wedding outfit over eighty years ago, a mahogany bedstead and a modern writing-desk and rocking-chairs. On the walls are several paintings, the work of loved hands long since at rest, and two engravings, over one hundred years old, such as used to hang in every Abolitionist's parlor in early days. They are copies of paintings by G. Morland, engraved in 1794, by "J. R. Smith, King St., Covent Garden, engravers to H. R. H. the Prince of Wales." One is entitled "African Hospitality," and represents a ship wrecked off the coast of Africa with the white passengers rescued and tenderly cared for by the natives; the other is named "The Slave Trade," and shows these same negroes loaded with chains and driven aboard ship by the white men whom they had saved. These pictures have little meaning to the present generation, but one can imagine how they must have fired the hearts of those who were laboring to eradicate the curse of slavery from the nation.

Back of the guest chamber, in this interesting home, is Miss Mary's sleeping-room, with quaint old furniture and family pictures; then the maid's room, another guest chamber and, in the southwest corner, next the bathroom, the pleasant bedroom of Miss Anthony with the pictures of those she loves best, and the dresser littered with the little toilet articles of which she is very fond. The most attractive room in the house, naturally, is Miss Anthony's study in the south wing on the second floor. It is light and sunshiny and has an open gas fire. Looking down from the walls are Benjamin Lundy, Garrison, Phillips, Gerrit Smith, Frances Wright, Ernestine L. Rose, Abby Kelly Foster, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lucy Stone, Lydia Maria Child and, either singly or in groups, many more of the great reformers of the past and present century. On one side are the book shelves, with cyclopedia, histories and other volumes of reference; on another an inviting couch, where the busy worker may drop down for a few moment's repose of mind and body. By one window is the typewriter, and by the other the great desk weighted with letters and documents.

Each morning, as soon as the postman arrives, Miss Anthony sits down at her desk and, going over the piles of letters, puts to one side those which can wait, dictates replies to those requiring the longest answers and, while they are being typewritten, plunges with her pen into the rest. Many hours every day and often into the night she writes steadily, but the pile never diminishes. As president of the National-American Association not only must she direct the work for suffrage, which is being carried on in all parts of the country to a much greater extent than the public imagines, but she also must keep in touch with the hundreds of individuals each of whom is helping in a quiet but effective way. There are few days that do not bring requests from libraries, associations, colleges, high schools or clubs for literature and other information concerning woman suffrage, which is now the subject of debate from the great universities down to the cross roads schoolhouse. In past years libraries have been very deficient in matter upon this question because there was no general call for it, but now the demand is so large that it scarcely can be supplied, and all instinctively turn to Miss Anthony for information.

Some idea has been given of the scope of her correspondence of a public nature, but it hardly would be possible to describe the private letters. Standing for half a century as the friend and defender of women, and known so widely through her travels and newspaper notices, she is overwhelmed with appeals for advice and assistance. From the number of wives, and husbands also, who pour the tale of their domestic grievances into her ears, she would be fully justified in believing marriage a failure. She is daily requested to sign petitions for every conceivable purpose, and begged for letters of recommendation by people of whom she never heard. Women entreat her to obtain positions for their husbands and children and to help themselves get pensions, or damages, or wages out of which they have been defrauded. Girls and boys want advice about their plans for the future. Women, and men too, without education or experience, insist upon being placed as speakers on the suffrage platform. Authors send books asking for a review. People write of their business ventures, their lawsuits, their surgical operations, their diseases and those of all their family, and of every imaginable household matter. Scores of letters ask for a "word of greeting" on all sorts of occasions. Editors of papers and pamphlets, advocating every ology and ism under the sun, send them with the entreaty that she will examine and express an opinion, each insisting that "it will take only a few hours of her time." She is besieged to dress dolls and make aprons for fairs, to write her name upon pieces to be used for quilts and cushions, and to furnish scraps of her gowns for the same purpose. Babies are named for her and she is asked to send a letter of acknowledgment and a little keepsake. Requests for autographs outnumber the days of the year.

She is constantly importuned to examine MSS., and not only to do this but to secure a publisher. During the year 1897 one man sent an article of sixty-eight closely typewritten pages of legal cap, asking that she give it a careful reading, revise it, and send it where it would be published; and no postage stamps accompanied this nervy request. A woman whose grammar and rhetoric were most defective announced that she had written a book called "The Intemperate Life of my Father;" also two stories and a play. She would send all of them to Miss Anthony, to 'fix up just as if they were her own and help her sell them; she wanted the proceeds to assist her brothers who had failed in business.' It is a common occurrence for persons to ask, without so much as enclosing a stamp, that she prepare an address on woman suffrage and send for them to read as their own production. One enthusiastic poem begins:

"When the grain is ripe we will gather the sheaves, And weave a crown for your brow of laurel leaves."

A man from the great Northwest sends a long article entitled, "Sun and Moon Bathed in Blood! Ring, Ring the Bells!" desiring that it be put in the "index of the biography," meaning the appendix. One writes: "You are said to be very good about assisting helpless girls; now you could not find one more helpless than I am;" and then requests that she select, have made and pay for a school outfit for her. Another has a great scheme for starting a "workingwoman's home" and wants Miss Anthony to furnish the money. The list might be extended almost indefinitely and, while one is amused and disgusted by turns, there are among this vast correspondence many letters which touch the heart. During the tariff debate in Congress in 1897 a paragraph was widely published that a tax was to be placed on tea, and this note, evidently written by a child, was received: "My mamma goes out to work while I go to school and she loves her cup of tea. Our groceryman tells us we will have to pay more for it now. I have heard how good you are to the poor, do please spare time to write to the President and ask him not to make our tea dearer. Tell him to put the tax on beer and whiskey."

Miss Anthony is very conscientious about answering letters, too much so, her friends think, for she is a slave to her correspondence. Sometimes, however, she reaches the point of exasperation, as when she opened eight pages of a faintly written scrawl beginning, "My heart goes out to you in sympathy." "Well, I wish it would go out in blacker ink," she exclaimed, and threw it into the waste-basket. Invitations to lecture and to attend all sorts of gatherings pour in, and she often says to the younger workers, "If I might but transfer them to you, how much good you could accomplish." Every mail brings also loving and appreciative letters which illuminate the whole day, take the sting out of the unkind ones and lighten the burdens never entirely lifted. The women who have come into the work in late years continually ask, "How have you borne it so long?" Sometimes when their own endurance ceases they write her that they will have to resign, and she makes answer: "If all the young women fail, then the octogenarian must work the harder till a new reserve comes to the rescue;" and of course they are ashamed and redouble their labors to show their loyalty.

With all her hours of toil she is never satisfied with what she has accomplished, but always feels that she might have done a little more, that something or somebody has been neglected. In looking over the mention made in these chapters of a few of the most valuable gifts and noteworthy letters, she said with sadness: "And no notice has been taken of the hundreds of little tokens of affection which cost far more of sacrifice on the part of the givers, and of the thousands of letters from obscure but faithful women, without which I never could have had the courage to do my work."



While Miss Anthony has remained at home more days in 1897 than in any previous year for half a century it has been one of the busiest in regard to letter-writing. It is the dream of her life to raise a permanent fund to be placed in the hands of trustees, after the manner of the famous Peabody fund, the income to be used to further the cause of woman suffrage. To accomplish this she is exerting her strongest powers of appeal. During all these years of labor for humanity she has had to beg practically every dollar she has used, and she longs to relieve the workers of the future from this drudgery and humiliation, by providing an assured income, so they may not be obliged to expend half their time and strength in obtaining the money with which to do the work. In addition to this Standing Fund, she is endeavoring also to secure enough money for the early establishment of a Press Bureau for the purpose of taking up and answering, day by day, the false statements made in regard to woman suffrage, its ultimate aims and actual results; to furnish news and arguments where they are desired; and to enlist the support of the press for this question, which is now acknowledged to be one of the leading issues of the day.

The event of 1897 which gave Miss Anthony more pleasure than all others, in fact one of the happiest incidents of her life, was the Anthony Reunion at Adams, Mass., the last of July. The Historical and Scientific Society of Berkshire had for many years held an annual meeting at some one of the historic spots for which that county is especially noted. In 1895 this had been held in the dooryard of the old Anthony homestead, and she had been invited to be present, but was otherwise engaged. It had been the custom to eulogize her highly at these gatherings but it was determined that now she must come and speak for herself, therefore the invitation was repeated for 1896, but then she was in California. In 1897 the letter from the president, A. L. Perry, said: "The present writing is to give you a formal and official invitation, in the name of the people of the entire county, whose representatives we are, to be present and participate in our next meeting. You may be sure of a warm welcome from your old neighbors who remain, and from the generation of Berkshire people, men and women, now on the stage."

The meeting was to be held in Lee, and she wrote that if they would again hold it at the old Anthony homestead she would put aside everything else and come. She soon received this answer from Rev. A. B. Whipple: "It gives me pleasure, as vice-president of the Berkshire Historical Society, to inform you that we have decided to gratify your 'bit of sentiment' as well as our own inclination to meet again 'in that old dooryard,' to do you honor as one of the natives of Berkshire whose historic lives are finding a deserved and permanent record in our society."